Monday Fun

I know it's the dog days and all that, but John J. Miller offers an interesting challenge over at the Corner:

I'm thinking about compiling a list of conservatism's great unwritten books — i.e., books about the conservative movement that ought to exist, but don't. For example, nobody has written a biography of Irving Kristol. Or a history of the 1970s tax revolt (California's Proposition 13 and all that). At least I'm not aware of any.

I'd like your help. If you have ideas for topics, please send them to me at nrorocks -at- yahoo.com.

It may be helpful to think about the question this way: Is there a book on conservatism that you've always wanted to read, but couldn't find? I don't care if the idea is obscure. Go ahead and suggest it anyway.

My motives are twofold. First, to compile an interesting list that provides mind candy for conservative geeks like me. Second, to suggest ideas to potential writers, including graduate students in search of dissertation topics.

I've been canvassing friends and colleagues for a few weeks now, and they've come up with some very interesting ideas. But I'd like more. So please send yours.

Here are a few that have not been done or need to be redone just for argument sake:

-Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, and American conservativism in the 1930s--not as resistance to the New Deal, which James Patterson did pretty well, but as an idea of its own.

-William Howard Taft and 20th century American conservatism.

-Theodore Roosevelt as a conservative, with a nod toward John Morton Blum and the Republican Roosevelt.

-Ulysses S. Grant as a conservative.

-Ike as conservative.

-The thoughts and actions of conservative Gilded Age presidents.

-Conservatism/Republicanism and civil rights.

-African American conservatism, both before and after WWII.

-Heck, conservatism and World War II would make for a fascinating book, especially if it wasn't written from the Alan Brinkley, End of Reform, perspective.

Throw your ideas in the comments, and we will forward them on to Miller.